Forests Part 1 - Maehongson and Pakalo Village (Oct 31-Nov 2)

First night we stayed in a guest house after our awful bus ride to Maehongson. We were basically all crammed into a small bus made for Thai people, drugged up on dramamine, for 9 hours!! Enough said...

Pakalo (11/1)

After day one, we had a short road hike to Pakalo Village. This village was Karen and very weird! The villagers all seemed pretty drunk when we arrived! We met our host families (for the night only) and they took us "home." They actually didn't speak to us at all. I'm assuming they spoke Karen and not so much Thai. I eventually built up enough nerve to ask to shower. We all showered, ate dinner...without the family. We later found out that the Karen families serve their guests first and eat after. Sometimes they eat our leftovers....AWKWARD. We then went to a meeting. I was pretty zoned out and drew a very detailed picture of a tree because we had already had two meetings in MHS earlier in the day! ADD kicking in...

After the meeting, we packed up because we had a very full day of hiking head of us. While we were packing, our Mugah (host mom) started pulling out scarves to sell us. One of us had to buy, so I took one for the team. The start of MANY purchases...

Couldn't sleep because I was pretty nervous for the hike the following day! It was marked as "very technical" and had 30+ rivercrossings!!

Hike to Huay Nam (11/2)

The 30+ river crossing claim was proven TRUE!  I didn't actually count but it was at LEAST 30! The river crossings were awesome. Some were bigger than others but the entire time I was completely in awe. The hike was beautiful! I wish I had more time to take it all in but we were on a schedule. The entire hike I kept zoning out and taking in the surroundings! However, while zoning out, I would forget to watch my footing/be careful, which was a bit precarious on this "technical" hike. This part of the hike was my favorite part of the trip thus far! 

After the river crossings we had to get up some major altitude. So, we hiked all uphill for a while! This was NOT fun and I lost my love of the hike...however, I didn't lose my awe! Uphills in Thailand aren't like any uphills I have ever experienced. They are very steep for a very long time.  I think part of my exhaustion was explained by the fact that I didn't sleep very well the night before!!

Eventually after 6 hours or so, we finished up the hike in Huay Nam! Huay Nam was beautiful with a BEAUTIFUL view!